Projection Powered Player Props - April 29
Jon gives an update on the model's performance and doles out some picks for the massive Tuesday slate!
We are into the season’s second month, which means we can do that thing that nobody wants to do… self evaluation. It’s never comfortable to check your projection model’s results, but it’s something we should do.
So let’s see which props are working and which are not, and use that to cook up some plays for tonight’s massive slate.
You can do your own evaluation, by the way, the bet tracker is here.
Here are all of the specific bet type (above a 5% value threshold) that have been profitable so far this year (at least a 5% ROI).
By “value threshold”, I mean the difference between what my model thinks the chances of the bet winning are and what the sportsbook’s line implies. To take an example:
My model thinks there’s a 72% chance of Gore striking out at least seven Phillies today. The -105 price that DraftKings is giving us implies a 51% chance. So the gap between those two numbers is 21% (20.5% to be particular). That number is what the “bet value” is.
So the “HR Over” has been a big winner with a 19.6% ROI on 95 bets. You can drill down into the details of that like this:
For tracking purposes, we assume we put one unit on each prop. So there have been 95 bets recommended in this category (95 units), and the overall net of units is 18.65. Divide 18.65 by 90 and you get +0.21 units per bet. Or take your total winnings (95 units wagered + 18.65 uni profited = 113.65 units) and divide that by the units wagered (113.65/95=1.196, or a 19.6% ROI).
That’s how the tracker works. Will the “over homers” bets stay at a 19% ROI? I kind of doubt it! I’m personally pretty shocked to see any home run doing well. Those lines are usually absolute traps, but maybe we’re catching them on some mispricing, or maybe my model is actually just better than theirs! Who knows. What you certainly shouldn’t do is start betting money you can’t afford to lose on any of this stuff!
But it’s fun to have a bit more vested interest in the games, and it’s very exciting for me personally to see some ability to beat the big guys at their own game. So let’s peak into the projections today and look for “over homers” at 0.5 or greater:
Ben Rice +430 on FanDuel
Connor Norby +560 on FanDuel
FanDuel usually has the best odds in my sheets for homers. But the only books I’m considering there are DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars. So if you’re one of those odds shoppers (which you probably should be if you’re taking this seriously), I’d go looking for the best line on that. Looks like there’s a +475 on Bet365 right now. Those little differences add up in a hurry.
Personally, I wouldn’t take that Connor Norby one. The model doesn’t know him very well since he’s had limited playing time, and we aren’t even sure who is pitching for the Dodgers tonight.
The “over doubles” has done well, but it’s only on 25 bets. Here’s what that looks like over the last two days:
Four doubles recommendations, one winner, but the +$4.50 outweighs the $-3 from the L’s.
With homers and doubles, you’re going to lose most of the time. You’re just hoping that the few hits make up for it with the +500 or better price tags. I imagine that’s what you’ll be seeing at a 5% or better edge - higher prices.
We have one today:
Kerry Carpenter over 0.5 doubles +450 on FanDuel
Probably the biggest winner so far, all things considered, has been betting unders on singles. Talk about a boring bet. Who wants to sit and watch a game just rooting for someone to not get a single. But hey. It’s been a 9.7% ROI on 154 bets - so that’s high volume. We get a ton of them every day. Here are today’s:
Lourdes Gurriel +130
Paul Goldschmidt +115
Manny Machado +120
Marcell Ozuna +100
Carlos Correa +100
Brayan Rocchio -115
Gabriel Arias -120
Ben Rice -130
Austin Riley +110
Alec Bohm +110
Geraldo Perdom +130
Fernando Tatis Jr. +120
Next up is the pitcher walks overs. They’re +8% on 87 bets. We explored this in the daily notes earlier this year. Umps are calling more balls this year, for some reason. Maybe it’s randomness, maybe it’s extra fear of getting shown up by hitters since that’s a big topic of discussion these days. I don’t know. But the league BB% is 9.0% this year, significantly higher than a year ago. So the walks overs are winning while the unders have been very bad.
Three overs tonight:
Shota Imanaga +125
Logan Webb +130
Miles Mikolas +130
Those are three of the league’s best strike-throwers, so you wouldn’t usually want to bet on them for a couple of walks. But this is a math game, not a feel game. Imanaga has 2+ walks in four of his six starts. Webb has 2+ walks in three of his six. Mikolas has walked multiple in four of five. And those prices are all as if they are more likely to walk zero or one than 2+. So there you go!
Hitter hits unders have also been good (+6.3% on 147 bets). That’s similar to the singles thing. If we up the criteria to at least a 7% value, the ROI explodes to 25.1% on 43 bets. Here are the four today over 7%:
Last one before I go. The most fun and popular pitching prop is clearly strikeouts. And my model has been good on those.
→ Pitcher Overs Above 10% value: 10% ROI on 145 bets
→ Pitcher Unders Above 10% value: 9.3% ROI on 70 bets
There are five today:
So that’s the end. I just wanted to take an opportunity to check on the model results and try to point you guys in the more favorable direction. Back later with the slate preview!